MPA President/CEO Nina Link to Step Down at Year-End

Nina Link, who guided the MPA--the Association of Magazine Media (formerly Magazine Publishers of America) through much transformation over the past 12½ years, announced her resignation this morning (June 7), effective at year-end. By then, Link would have surpassed her 1987-1999 predecessor Don Kummerfeld in longevity.

Link's since-Nov. 1999 tenure is most notable for magazines' shift to multimedia (especially digital) rather than print-only and enduring major recessions in 2000-2002 (exacerbated by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks) and the Sept. 2008 financial crisis, where the effects continue.

In a statement, Link expressed a "mission accomplished" desire to return to her The Link Group consultancy. "MPA has worked effectively over the past two years to reposition itself and the industry. We rebranded and refocused the mission and priorities of MPA. We changed our management team. We changed how we engaged with our members....I decided that this was the ideal time to reestablish my consulting and product development firm.”

In the 1980s and 1990s, Link was Children's Television Workshop (now Sesame Workshop) Group president/publishing.

Hearst Magazines president/marketing and publishing director Michael Clinton, who doubles as chairman of the MPA board of directors, says that the association has retained the executive recruiting firm Blinkhorn, LLC, to conduct the search for Link's successor. "I know there will be a lot of interest," he says. He also praises Link for her "exceptional skills as a unifying force in a competitive industry with so many disparate interests."